Minutes of Cramond Parents & Staff Council meeting held at Cramond Primary School on Monday 14 November 2016

Present / Apologies
Caroline Duff (Chair)
Linda Campbell
Steph Croan
Helen Donaldson
Jim Poseley
Louise Taylor
Maggie Smith
Livia Wright
Caroline Duguid / Claire McDowell
Kathryn Garvie
Nick Balchin
Tammie Fletcher
Emma Walker
Alison McKay
Niketa Platt
Sheila Kennedy / Claire Hunter
Fiona Pengelly
Sarah Anderson
Katie Bruce
Victoria Bowes
Simon Oliphant
Nicola McKirdy
Celina Davis
Gillian Waddell
Kari Cessford
Debbie Smith
Agenda Item / Discussion / Action / Person(s) Responsible / Date for completion
Welcome / Caroline welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Apologies / Apologies were given as above.
Acceptance of minutes of last meeting / The minutes were reviewed and accepted as an accurate reflection of the meeting.
Treasurers Report / £3260 in 100ClubAccount. £2701in main Account. £1097 in Parent Voice account.
£600 profit made from Halloween disco (with £816 received and £214 costs paid out).
Class Reps Updates –
Nursery – P7 / Communication on website – see email from nursery rep
Nursery pickup - there are no plans to change the nursery pickup times.
When the new hours from Scottish Government come into being, we will reassess.
The government is changing the number of nursery hours again but this is not imminent.
Issues with parents having picked up P1&2 children, but then having to wait around outside when weather is inclement and there is nowhere to wait for nursery pick up.
New Groupcalls only going to 1 parent. Can this be changed?
Stones in the playground. Shoes and clothes dirty. HD can look at it, but it will not be an imminent change. All surfaces were looked into before the stones/gravel was decided on.
Feedback from parents is they are disappointed there is no Christmas Fair this year. CPSC wanted to try something different this year. It has been very difficult to get volunteers to take part and organise/man the event and as it is so time consuming, we decided to try it out once a year (ie in the summer). Pupils will still do the Christmas Elves event (on the Sharing Learning Newsletter, which came out in August) which is during the School day and parents can come along to it.
Movie night is going ahead and things such as the bottle stall / Christmas hamper raffle tickets could be sold then and drawn at the Christmas Elves event.
Concern from some parents leave via the back gate in the dark following after school club. Several lights not working. If no lighting, lines, parking – there is a complaints email address on council website question about the photographer. See notes below relating to Photo Calendar.
Communication – difficult for working parents who cannot make events when dates are changed. Difficult for the School when they have no choice, but will take it on board and have conversation with Bright Horizons in future years. We plan our diary in April each year, but sometimes things simply have to be changed.
Homework – can all years coordinate to have the same return dates? This would allow it to fit better with family life. The School have restricted the blocks to the walls. It fits in with home-life and has been looked at previously.
Statement made about some parental feeling that children are not being challenged enough.
The following points had been submitted earlier by email from reps with the following response given:
Drumfun - this event was part of the sports hall opening and no PE lessons were missed as a result although they may have been rescheduled or in a different location. (Investigated – this was the case. Dance is also part of PE, as are rugby tasters, etc.)
Last minute events - the school does their best to provide as much notice as possible about upcoming events, especially those requiring money to be sent in. The school calendar is published on the website but there are always going to be things which come up during the year or dates have to change. We try to give as much notice as possible.
Website communication confusion in regard to whether an item is a school or nursery item. The school will take this on-board. Communication is a priority in school but with such a large and busy environment sometimes there are things overlooked. The school website and groupcall are main means of communication. / HD to look into the matter.
Mrs Waddell to respond to reps directly on nursery concerns.
HD to speak to Groupcall
HD appreciates feedback and will take comments onboard, but no imminent change will happen.
HD to report back to P1 teachers about this.
HD will check lighting within school grounds.
Our PLACE and grounds Maintenance Update from Helen Donaldson / Much improved situation. More pairs of hands and support needed to achieve plans for next year. Trim trail is the next on the agenda.
Great gardening fairies who have been helping out. Presentation from Katie to be sent to all reps. Parent volunteer in various segments of the gardens.
Fundraising
Upcoming Events
Fundraising Focus / First meeting of the group took place last week. Some parents had completed forms to say they wanted to be part of the group also. Plans to have a core group, with a bank of parents who wish to help at some events.
Quiz night postponed as there were only 3 tables sold. Will now take place early next year.
Efforts put into Movie Night on Thursday 8th December. New hall will be used for showing the movie and the children. Parents will have things going on in the old hall.
P7 children can visit each class to sell the event to the children.
Each child must be accompanied by an adult where possible. P7s could man things like the tuck shop on the evening.
Could CPSC be given a page on the website for advertising events and fundraising things, etc?
Our PLACE provides a space for gross motor skill development. We now need to look at the creative side of things. We want to look at creative outdoor classroom and funds to make this happen.
Another area the School needs to look at funds for is Enhancing Learning and Teaching through digital technology. All hardware machines are being taken away and we are going to have discussion with parents and children as to what we could develop and what we can do from a finance side of things to provide the best we can for our pupils.
Perhaps school staff could run a Friday afternoon movie session to raise some money. Another possibility is for the School to organise a ceilidh in January for parents and children.
CD calendars and A4 calendars will be available to order. CD - £4, 2 for £7 and 3 for £10. A4 - £5, 2 for £9 and 3 for £13. Will not be the sort of things we will do every year, but we think it will be a great fundraising project and the money will go towards the creative classroom and digital technology. The photos were taken by Top of the Class and we were impressed with their work. Moving forward, we will use them as the School photographer.
Trinity Primary have been helpful in passing on information – such as an app which we can use for filling slots of volunteering at events. Hope to have it up and running for the movie night. Groupcall with link can be sent out to parents and not just to CPSC members.
Cramonds Got Talent – thought for this year, if we promote earlier we could get Scottish Dancing Club, Glee Club, Fencing Club involved and they would have time to arrange something.
New disco lights installed this week. Mood lighting bars arrived today. Future discos – we have all the kit to hold our own discos and Mrs Donaldson
Children like party games and feel we should include more of these in future.
Quite a logistical problem to how we manage the in and out flow of parents and children when there are 2 discos back to back.
Perhaps a Friday afternoon from 4.30 onwards and the older ones after that.
Steph happy to arrange the Spring Disco.
Possibility of having a ‘pop up’ shop, with small craft items for pupils to purchase with all funds going to school fundraising pot.
Could be included in a P7 stall at the Movie Night/Christmas Elves event. / HD to set up and liaise with Caroline, Louise and Claire.
Anyone who helped out at the Halloween Disco to feedback to Steph on how things went and how things could improve.
Steph to arrange the Spring Disco.
Chair Role vacancy / Caroline went over how old CPSC Chair role could be split between more people. Main Chair responsibilities:
Chairing regular CPSC meetings, including AGM
Meetings with Helen Donaldson
Meet with Helen (plus vice chairs and head of fundraising) ahead of each CPSC meeting to agree any agenda items. Make sure that anything that has been raised by reps is discussed so that Helen can give a response.
Once a Year activities
·Annual report for AGM
·Inform office of new office bearers, with contact details
·Remind office bearers to check tray in office/introduce themselves to staff
·Share link to gmail account and Google drive with office bearers
Succession Planning
Treasurer, Chair, Vice-Chairs and Events Sub-Committee Head all need a planned succession. Class reps work on a 2-yr rotation.
Leaving collections for retiring teachers
CPSC Meeting Minutes
Linda (CPSC Clerk) sends out meeting reminder, request for agenda items etc. After the meeting, Linda will send the minutes to Chair and Helen for approval.
Groupcalldetails to be sent out to whole parent body. / If anyone is interested in CPSC Chair role, please contact Caroline Duff or your class rep for further details.
HD to send CPSC members more details on Groupcall
School Update from Helen Donaldson
Governance Review / Lengthy document has been released by the Scottish Government and looking for the CPSC to meet and compile a response from the group. Lots of different, and very important topics discussed in the document. Cramond Primary School will make a response and Helen is part of a group of Edinburgh Head Teachers, who will also make a response.
If CPSC need to arrange a meeting in the School, please let them know. / Caroline to organise a follow up meeting and come up with a response.
Parental questionnaire on Our PLACE / Some more questions needed to be included in a parent survey which will go to all parents. CPSC consulted and reps to feedback to draft questionnaire to Helen. The School want furtherinvolve parents in the School and their child’s learning.
Informationabout wildlife garden requested. / Class reps to forward any details for other questions you feel would be good to include to Helen Donaldson.
School Update from Helen Donaldson –school trip fees / 1 in 5 children live in poverty.
Parents can contact Helen at anytime if budgeting for children to be included in these activities is very difficult. We do not make any profit on any school trips. We are considering offering a ‘pay what you can afford’ for trips in the new year. Schools which have tried it since August are finding good results, and any ‘surplus’ is carried over and made available for future trips. All children should be able to take part in activities and not penalised due to financial hardship.
Noticeboards to be made up showing the activities offered. After Christmas, we are expecting more evening classes to start up by School Lets. Active Schools are also looking at what clubs we could have.
School Update from Helen Donaldson
Parent Pay / Moving to it on 15 January 2017. Parents have been asking for this for a long time. It will include School Meals also. Staff are currently being trained in the system. Plan to roll this out to every school in Edinburgh. Payment will be made through an app or a webpage. You need to have a bank account to use this system. / HD to forward the link to the Parent Pay site.
School Update from Helen Donaldson
Groupcall / Feedback will be listened to. It is early days, and a huge task to undertake. Links to app have been forwarded to the class reps.
AOCB / Drumfun – part of Health and Wellbeing. Could consent forms for such events be sent out, or some sort of note to say if you did not want your child to be involved, to let us know in writing?
Also P3 children missed PE that day and did not have it today again. (Helen investigate – they have not missed PE. Dance is part of the PE curriculum.)
Following events, could we send out a communication to parents saying how much we raised and then what the funds are going towards?
Details could go onto website, or in the newsletter for example.

Next meeting Tuesday 31st January 2017